Golden Sunshine Cookies

Sunday, July 10, 2011

In the early 80's Keebler had these golden sunshine cookies.  We ate them constantly, and they were always stocked in our pantry.  Time passes as it always does, and the mind forgets and before you know it, you forget about the wonderful little morsels of crunchy goodness.  Fast Forward 20-30 years and you wonder, what ever happened to?  then you realize - King Arthur Flour has come to your rescue and has enshrined these wonderful little cookies for all eternity and you bite into one, and smile.

Golden Sunshine Cookies

Yield: 30 cookies

prep time:

cook time:

total time:

Ingredients

• 1 cup unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 Tbs confectioners' sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 6 Tbs cold butter
• 3 to 4 Tbs ice water
• Filling
• 1 large egg (lightly beaten)
• 1 1/2 cups currants (or chopped raisins)
• Topping
• 1/2 cup coarse white sparkling sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350° and measure and prep all ingredients.
2. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  After having cut your butter into small cubes, work into the dry ingredients.  You may use a mixer on low for this purpose.  The butter should be evenly distributed and mixture should appear crumbly.
4. Begin adding 2 tbsp of colder water, then add 1 tbs at a time until the dough comes together.  Divide the dough into 2 pieces, then shape each half into a rectangle.  Use your hand to press the sides in to press out the unevenness.  Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.
5. Using one piece of dough at a time, place it on a lightly floured surface, and roll into a rectangle as close to 10x14 as possible, and about 1/8" thick.  Brush half of the dough with beaten egg, then 3/4 of the currants, pressing them into the dough gently.
6.  Fold he clean half of the dough over the currants, roll again gently.
7. Brush the currant filled dough rectangle with more beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse sugar.  Trim off the ragged edges to even them up. 
8. Carefully cut the dough into 3 strips, then cut each strip into 5 pieces to have a total of 15 rectangular cookies.  Transfer these cookies to the prepared baking sheets.  The cookies will not expand, so you are free to place them close together.
9. Repeat with the second piece of dough.  Bake for 14-18 minutes until light golden brown.  Remove from the oven and transfer to a rack to completely cool.

All photographs copyright Janet S. Grey.

By Krumpetina